feels like the first thyme...??

[Ravenswing]

So what was your first deck? Any particular story behind it?

Mine was the Swiss IJJ or something like that. I was about 10 and had been passing these boardwalk gypsies every summer in Atlantic City since I could remember. (My grandmother lived there so it was every summer at the beach...) It finally got to me and I went out searching--in Atlantic City, that is.

I don't really remember what kind of shop it was--there weren't any "occult" specialty shops there. But it was in the window. The only deck on the boardwalk.

I couldn't get anywhere at all with it.

It took 4 years and the RWS to get me on track. So it goes.


fly well
ravenswing

 

[PAMUYA]

The first time I ever saw a card reading was when I was about 5, my Grandmother was giving a reading to one of her friends, the reading was with regular playing cards. Through out my life my Mother and Grandmother gave readings with playing cards in our home.

I got (and saw) my first Tarot cards this past December 2007, it was the Guilded deck, it was at the book store. I don't know why I bought it, my mother had passed away about 4 years ago suddenly, and we didn't get the chance to have her teach me about card reading, in fact I really wasnt interested in reading cards until I bought the deck this past December.

I cracked open the pack and started to study them. I took a class a few months later (with the RWS deck), and now I am here. I am already doing readings and enjoying it. I love reading off of Tarot cards, they are so beautiful, much better than playing cards...LOL.

 

[Emily]

I was fifteen and had been reading playing cards for around 4 years, I went to the town next to ours with a boyfriend and found in the backstreets an occult shop, it hadn't been there long.

I still remember the smell of the incense as we went in through the doors, well I went in, my boyfriend didn't want to.

The lady shop assistants were friendly, I can only remember seeing the 1JJ Swiss - there might have been a RWS there as well but as I'd been reading playing cards, the assistant recommended the 1JJ Swiss - they had it as a Majors only deck too, I've never seen that since, only ever the full deck.

I really liked the deck at that point and spent all my money on it LOL - they also had the book for the deck written by Stuart Kaplan but they didn't have it in stock. I ordered a copy and arranged to go back the next week for it.

The next week we did go over and the same shop assistants were there, they asked how I was getting on with the deck, I'd been struggling with it all week but hoped the book would help. They then offered me tarot lessons but I was sure I'd been able to get the hang of this deck after using playing cards, so I turned them down.

Jump forward to, I think it was only either a few weeks or maybe a month, we go over again and the shop is gone. The windows have been broken and graffiti spray painted over the shop front - words like 'baby killers' - the usual kind of thing. Its obvious they have been run out.

For a few months after that, every time I went into town, I'd call down that street just to see if they would open up again and they never did. I've never been in a proper occult shop again, they all seem to be New Age now.

I never took to the 1JJ Swiss and within the year, it was placed in a drawer and completely forgot about, I stopped reading playing cards too - I was a young teen and much too busy with being a teenager and trying to find work and have fun at the same time.

I always knew where the deck and book were though, I still have them. The deck was the founding member of my collection.

 

[tarotberry]

it's funny...two of the first three posts mirror my story! i was 10 and living in New Orleans. during trips into the French Quarter, i hovered around the door to one particular shop. i wanted those cards in the window!!! anyway, the nice lady* at the counter told me a book and a deck would be around $30. i saved for a while and went back to buy the set. now, i know she meant well...but she helped me select the Connolly Tarot which turned out to be "lame" in my ten year old eyes. i think i wanted a scary deck then?!? i fooled around with them until 17ish when i found my first REAL reading deck. that seems to be a theme though...second time's a charm!

*side note: i have a habit of keeping things to use as bookmarks - chunnel boarding pass, cards from misfit decks i don't ever use, etc. imagine my delight when i opened an old book six months ago and there was said nice lady's business card! dude, it's been 18 years!!! at least i know her name was Mary. she certainly helped me on my path. it's taped inside my "magic box" with all my decks now. i think it belongs there.

 

[WolfSpirit]

The very first deck I got was not a tarot deck but a Lenormand oracle. It was small and very cheap and I got it in a regular bookstore. It was very popular around here, more so than tarot.
My first tarot deck I think was the Lovers Tarot, a majors only deck with huge cards, some sort of collage (or early photoshop ?) of Renaissance art...looks very dated now but was probably very modern then, lol. I remember the companion book was very positive about every card, I think I didn't get that much out of it.
After that I got a proper 78 card tarot deck, the Dutch RWS...ugly colours and pretty bad cardstock, but I still have it I feel my tarot study only started properly with this one, although I learnt heaps more when I discovered AT...but thanks to AT I also discovered other much more beautiful decks, so before I knew it I had an avalanche of decks

 

[Alta]

I do not think that I knew anything about fortunetelling, coming from a small rural town. Then I got my first job and moved to the other side of the country to Vancouver, which even in 1971 was very 'open'. There were tea leaf readers in cafe's and lots of psychics etc. I was fascinated.

There was the most wonderful bookstore there, with a curving metal staircase and bookshelves that snaked around so you could browse peacefully. I found Waite's book The Pictorial Key to the tarot, also one by Eden Grey, a RWS deck and struggled with them.

When I was transferred north to Whitehorse (in the Yukon), I was put into what was called the government Singles' Quarters, meaning unmarried folks. There I met a German lady and she had a version of the Lenormand (and which I finally found a copy last year) and she taught me to read with it. I remember one huge party where she and I read side by side, so much fun.

Then, after 3 years I was transferred to Halifax (on the east coast, Nova Scotia) and the whole thing became quiet. In the mid 80's though I was introduced to the I Ching by a neighbour and they started by interest back up.

A Wiccan store opened in Halifax, I bought the Robin Wood, found Aeclectic and from then on was a convert.

 

[Hooked on TdM]

My start was certainly different. My parents (and us kids by extension) were Jehovah Witnesses until I was six. My grandmother was one until she passed away. After we were disfellowshiped, I met my great grandma for the first time. Now she was a neat lady. She held seances, read playing cards, tea leaves, the whole nine yards. She used to let me have these huge oatmeal cookies and taught me little bits. Somewhere in there my mother got Tarot cards. I know she got instruction from great grandma. Although my mother would chase us out of the room when she used them, I used to peak anyways. The Tarot cards were explained to us, but we were never allowed to touch them. When I was an older teen my mother did a few readings for me then bought me the Cat tarot. Our family history was explained to us, in that it was a family tradition of sorts and many generations of women had read Tarot. My grandmother was very creeped out by them though and extremely religious. So we had a lot of secrecy surrounding them. Anyways.. been hooked on them for many years now.

Hooked

 

[LightTraveller]

Well, the first deck I ever used would have been my roommate's Aquarian, during my first year of college. He was a huge Piers Anthony fan, and had gotten his cards after reading the Tarot series. I spent *hours* on the floor of our room doing reading after reading, just getting the hang of it all. I wouldn't mind picking up that deck now, if only for nostalgia's sake.

The first one I bought was the Cat People Tarot. The images were pretty cool, but it never really talked to me. I eventually gave it to a friend who had cats, and she loved it!

I guess the deck I have had the longest is my mini RWS.

 

[Radhemily]

I had a number of decks years ago. Most of them bought during my senior year of high school or very early on in college. I'm 31 now.

The one I remember most is the Art Nouveau, but I think my first may have been the Mythic. I did such good readings with the Art Nouveau.

Then I joined a charismatic fundamentalist Christian church who told me that all of that stuff was evil. So, in my newfound firey faith, I threw all of them away. Threw them away! I can't believe it! I could really kick myself now.

It's taken me 5 years after leaving that church to overcome their programming and buy a new Tarot deck. *sigh* I do miss my Art Nouveau.

 

[Morwenna]

My mother's mother had been a reader of playing cards, and my mother could have taken the time to learn but didn't; she only remembered the meanings of a few cards and no spreads. And my grandmother died before I turned seven. So I was on my own, pretty much.
Somewhere in my young adulthood I became aware of Tarot, but I didn't do much about it till I was in my thirties when I met some Pagans and other occult-minded people though medieval re-creation groups and science fiction conventions. I bought most of my decks from merchants at conventions. At first I had a few books, the very first one I had was by Eden Gray. The first deck I ever bought was the Stairs of Gold, because I thought it was so beautiful. And this was about 25 or more years ago, when there were fewer styles out there. Most books I saw featured the RWS, but some were illustrated by a variety of decks, some of which I still haven't seen in person! Because of those various illos, I conceived a fascination for the Morgan-Greer deck, but when I first saw it in person I was weirded out by the fact that it had no borders! I had never seen such a thing. When I finally caved and bought one, it became the deck I actually learned to read with, and it's still one of my regulars.